Curriculum and classroom activities

When Gilderoy Lockhart was the professor, during the 1992–1993 school year, he decorated the room with his own pictures. During the first lesson, he gave a quiz completely irrelevant to the subject and then released a group of boisterous Cornish Pixies for the class to practice. However, due to his ineptitude and the students' inexperience, Lockhart lost control of them, leading the classroom to be demolished, and Lockhart ultimately fled the room with the rest of the students while irresponsibly ordering Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger to clear up his mess. After this one fiasco, Lockhart simply read aloud his supposedly great deeds from his textbooks, sometimes reenacting them and usually dragging Harry to play certain degrading roles. Due to this, the students did not learn anything about defence.

In the 1995–1996 school year, Harry and his fellow students were taught by Dolores Umbridge, who taught theory only with no practical training whatsoever. The book used was Defensive Magical Theory and it discourages anyone from ever using any form of offensive magic spells. The chapters of the book instead focus on negotiation and states that there is no good use for a jinx. Umbridge did not allow the students to discuss the material and certainly not to disagree with it. She also forbade any talking without raising hands, and always requested wands to be put away. As one of the methods of retaliation against her tyranny, the moment she enters the classroom she would be greeted by students with ill-coated symptoms of "Umbridge-itis", much to her chagrin.